My friend, Curu Olannon, over at ulthuan.net has been urging me to make an army blog for quite some while now, and I think I may finally have caved. Check out his army blog over at Ulthuan already if you have not, it is great. http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=45081 This blog will mainly be about my army, the battles i play and how I develop my list according to these battles.If I do any conversions or painting that I am happy with, I may post that as well, but I am not the greatest at the actual hobby part of the hobby.

I rolled Shield of Thorns, Flesh to Stone, Shield of Thorns and Regrowth for my spells. No thrones, so not optimal, but I was fairly happy.

He had many more drops than me, and his army was fairly mobile, so I knew had little hope of getting any good combats in with the Witches. His left flank with the 10 Wild Riders also looked very scary, but I thought I had a fair shot at killing him there. The Bolt Thrower deployment I was very happy with. They were decently spread out and had good lanes for shooting. One of them even got a building to stand in.

After Vanguard

The Vanguard part was a movement phase in its own right, as he had five units of fast cav and I had four. Nevertheless, I felt pretty good after it. His Wild Riders vanguarded so they could not charge turn 1 if he got the first turn. I moved my Dark Riders on the right flank up to threaten with a counter charge and the Warlocks up so they could doombolt his units. I also moved my left warlocks behind the building and my DR back to avoid getting shot at. He moved aggressively up on the left flank. We rolled for starting, and we both got a 2. I had +1 and so got the first turn, something I was very happy with.

Turn 1

I moved up cautiously on the right side, my Witches ran forward to get in his face, while my left flank reposition themselves.

I roll a 6 and a 5 for Winds of Magic and even channel one. What a great way to start the game! I roll four dice on Doombolt on the leftmost GR, which is dispelled with all his dice. I now have 8 dice to none. I use four dice for soulblight on the big unit of WR, something that lets me shoot him more easily and reduces his damage output on the charge somewhat. He has to let that go. I then cast flesh to stone on the unit of 5 shades standing in front of the WR, something that draws the scroll. I have two dice left which I use to cast Shield of Thorns on the Shades. 2d6s3 will hurt against an unarmoured t2 unit.

Shooting sees me kill 8 of the WRs and 6 GRs from two different units. That is a lot of casualties in one turn!

Rusty realises that he may have overextended a bit and decides to pull his forces back somewhat. Magic is 6v5. He casts Final Tranmutation on my Witches with 5 dice, something that draws my scroll. This is his most dangerous spell and the most dangerous round for it as well, as I see it. He rolls really well for shooting and kills about a third of my Witches.

Turn 2

I move the Witches further forward and move the rest of my army up as well, so I can be within range with my shooting and magic.

Magic is again 12v6. The leftmost Warlocks kills only two dryads with a doombolt, but the important thing is that he fails to dispel Flesh to Stone on the Witch Elves! They are now t5 against his shooting next turn. Another doombolt sees me kill 9 GG from the tower and lastly, Rusty fails to dispel Awakening of the Wood, which kills 5 dryads.

Shooting kills the rest of the WR and some GG.

On the WE turn, not much happens, but he uses his last three Dryads from the unit of 8 to redirect the Witch Elves. He also gets of Final Transmutation which kills 8 WE. Luckily, my characters passes their look-out sir tests. Shooting is pretty insignificant due to my high toughness, but he picks off three DR forcing them to run away.

Turn 3

I charge the Witch Elves into the Dryads and move up more aggressively. My leftmost Warlocks zips around his WR.

Magic is 6v3 and I manage to get Doombolt through, killing one of his two eagles hiding behind the tower. He unfortunately dispels Flesh to Stone.

In shooting, the rightmost Shades manages to kill one of the four remaining GG in his leftmost unit, who promptly runs of the board and my Reapers manage to put two wounds on his last eagle.

On his turn, the Winds of Magic blows strong and gives him 11v6 dice. His death mage is far from the action and my characters have good ward saves, so he has to use his metal mage. He rolls two 1's when casting Final Transmutation on the Witch Elves and loses two mage levels. I also dispel the spell. He does however get Soulblight through on the Witches....

In his shooting phase, he kills all but two Witch Elves and put a wound on the Hag. I am lucky he had so many small units so I could allocate a lot of hits on my characters to prevent him from killing the Witches.

Turn 4

I move my Cauldron into the forest to get soft cover and move a few units around to get into better positions. Magic is 5v4 and he stops Flesh to Stone. I do however cast Doombolt on the GG in the tower, killing 6. Shooting also kills a lot of GG and the Shades manage to take the last wound of the second Eagle.

The game after this is pretty uneventful. I shot of some of his stuff and make some GG run off the table. He sadly did not have much left to deal with all my stuff at this point of the game. In the last few rounds I killed one of his level 4s and he was left with his BSB and Death Wizard and a few fast cav models. He had killed one of my RBTs with Dryads and taken half of my Witch Elf unit which made this a 19-1. I felt a bit lucky as Rusty is a good player and this was my first time playing with the Witch Elf Star.

I don't feel like I got to use the WE in any good manner except for as bullet magnets, but that has everything to do with the list I faced. The men of the hour were as always the Warlocks and the RBTs, they took out an enormous amount of points.

Curu Olannon's blog is indeed gold. He will be amongst the first to be sacrificed to Khaine when we conquer Ulthuan.

Your battle was nicely played; I particularly liked your use of magic throughout and wiping of his Wild Riders early doors.

What I find strange about your list is the lack of a second strong combat block; Knights, Executioners, Black Guard ...even Sisters and Corsairs -- we have a lot of options for presenting strong co-threats. At the moment your list feels too much like all the eggs are in one basket, and tournament level players with stronger threats (I'm thinking WoC and Empire in particular) will make you pay for it.

Also, would the Black Amulet or even ToP make sense on your Dreadlord? Or does that effect comp scores (I don't play comp)?

About time this got started I think my initial suggestion for this blog is nearing 2 years!

So, first onto the list: I think the basic concept here is very, very strong. There are so many threats and so much board control it`s not even funny. I played a similar list with my CD not too long ago and this game highlighted the multi-faceted strengths it possesses: Warlocks and Shades are easily capable of gathering points, RBT can devastate a lot of things at a distance, Dwellers is hard to cope with and a flying 3++ Life L4 can always be useful. The Cauldron just makes the Witch Elves so strong it`s not even funny. I don`t believe the list should have a second combat threat as it defeats the purpose of the configuration: you would have to give up tons of board control to do this and furthermore your characters would be too spread out. As it stands now, this unit is one of the strongest Deathstars there is. Couple that with insane board control and decent magic (I don`t consider a single Life L4 to be strong as far as magic`s concerned) and you have a winner. Empire and WoC have been mentioned as strong opponents for this list - I don`t see why? May I ask what configurations this would be? Empire struggles a lot against board control armies and WoC simply can`t keep up at a distance here, nor do they have anything that can engage the Witch Elves (do the math. You will be surprised).

I don`t agree with the Ring of Hotek on the BSB: I just don`t see the value relative to having him load up on other stuff or even get the M6 banner. Most enemies won`t target this unit with spells regardless (strong players will realize the need for board control and do their best to kill off shades, dr and wl, chaffing away the frenzied WE to kingdom come). I`m also not sure spending points on the Hag is worth it: the SOAH is good against 2 things the way I see it: cavbusses and gutstars. Neither want to engage the Witch Elves and if they do, they lose.

Onto the game: These pictures tell me everything I need to know -

It is suicide to send the Wild Riders in against your WL + Shades like that. There is no way they are going to do anything useful unless you make a big mistake: You cannot catch fastcav and chaff unless it wants to be caught. WE have the ranged superiority here but they need to play compact to do so. WE had lots of expendable units so he could`ve pretty much sent your WE wherever he`d like and killed off the rest for a comfortable 12-8 or so, depending on quite a few things of course. To do this, the army needs to be patient and play around the center: with the building it`s very easy for him to get cover. It`s a hard matchup for WE no doubt, but I think this is doable given the lists, actually. With the aggressive vanguard you were able to eliminate his only "strong" (WE aren`t strong) troops very quickly as well as draw the scroll. Had he vanguarded the Wild Riders toward his center instead, I think you would be in for a lot tougher game. Well played

I don`t believe the list should have a second combat threat as it defeats the purpose of the configuration: you would have to give up tons of board control to do this and furthermore your characters would be too spread out. As it stands now, this unit is one of the strongest Deathstars there is. Couple that with insane board control and decent magic (I don`t consider a single Life L4 to be strong as far as magic`s concerned) and you have a winner. Empire and WoC have been mentioned as strong opponents for this list - I don`t see why? May I ask what configurations this would be? Empire struggles a lot against board control armies and WoC simply can`t keep up at a distance here, nor do they have anything that can engage the Witch Elves (do the math. You will be surprised).

Well met, Olannon.

(I hope you don't mind my campaign to sacrifice you to Khaine -- it is a backhanded compliment around here With Swordmaster and Aicanor you are in good company on our assassination list )

My preference is for a two towers list over a one tower list like this.

Reason?

If your opponent kills the unit then you very likely lose the game. With a second threat, your opponent focuses on the scary unit and your other threat has the opportunity to go to town, supported by your chaff.

On it's own a Witch Elf star can easily be fed chaff and led around all game.

Two Towers are harder to chaff up than one tower ... and if you feel that Two Towers loses too much board control? Then you go for a second threat that is less expensive i.e. a medium unit of Witches, Execs, Black Guard, or one that is more mobile i.e. Knights, Chariots, Flying combat character.

This doesn't mean the list cannot perform against the above, just that it is not to my personal taste to have all my eggs in the one infantry basket like this. It's not mobile enough, not well armoured enough, not equipped to deal with enemy armour, vulnerable to all of the above and too easily sent on a merry dance.

What you referred to: A Deathstar losing to MSU. What I saw? A 2-block list with insufficient support being torn apart. First of all the list in the BR which you call a deathstar isn`t even close to being one: without the S7 lord it has a lot of weaknesses. Furthermore there is a secondary unit here, which makes it more akin to the two towers approach you discuss and incidentally also show why I don`t like these lists: there is insufficient ranged presence here to capitalize on the implicit board control of the Witchstar.

Let me elaborate: If the list Dark Reaper is playing had faced the MSU list in your referred BR, he could simply castle up and won the ranged war. There is no need to send the Witches anywhere: they`ll never reach meaningful combat regardless. This is true for a lot of matchups - against weak players you can push ahead and probably go 20-0 with ease (important in tournaments) but against strong players your ranged presence gives you a lot of options.

Core tax is core tax. No armies wish to spend more points than necessary on core. With the Witchstar under ETC we`re looking at getting it to 450 points, which leaves 150 points in core. Fill this up with Dark Riders (an excellent unit) and you`re good to go with characters and board control units.

As for the Witchstar`s weaknesses it depends entirely upon the matchup. You mention Empire and WoC. Against the latter you can simply hang back and force him to come to you. He`ll have a super-hard time dealing with Warlocks and Shades, even Dark Riders can`t be handled effectively here. Empire is a little trickier, the saving grace here is that they normally lack chaff. I don`t see neither impact hits nor thunderstomps as a problem for the witches as nothing with either of them want to engage it: chariots get blown away quickly and monsters hate poison. 1+ AS actually isn`t a problem either as a S7 AP lord alone can dish out 3W/turn (assuming non-ward). Then there`s the 50 attacks with poison, re-rolling to hit, re-rolling to wound. The math starts adding up my man and at the end of the day you simply don`t want to be doing this. Unkillable Roadblocks - usually these have high T, which is negated by poison, e.g. Iron Daemon, Sphinxes etc. The only roadblock I can think of which could be a problem is the T10 W5 Dwarf Lord since his frontage is so small. He is rarely taken and he is vulnerable to combat resolution (3 ranks, 2 banners etc). Did you have anyone else in mind?

The Witchstar is, ironically enough, not about putting all your eggs in one basket. It is about preserving points while allowing flexibility. Do not forget the L4 Life Wizard flying around here, she is a force to be reckoned with and Lifebloom, Flesh to Stone and Regrowth are great with the Witchstar. In a way, it is similar to the points-preservation Star Dragon-helping bus that are quite popular in HE circles. Example list below:

Lord on Star DragonMage L2 High D. scrollMage L2 High ICI, Ring of FuryBSB BOTWDNoble-- all heroes on horsies --

13 Silver Helms, FC5 Reavers5 Reavers5 Reavers

4 RBTsFrostheartEagle

Now this list is surprisingly very similar in playstyle to this Witchstar. It is incredibly hard to get big points from and has significant ranged presence. The main difference is of course that the HE list doesn`t fear a stronger Deathstar because you can`t catch M9, whereas the Dark Elf list has superior board control. IIRC this HE list was the one which scored the most points at the ETC main tournament last year.

The list is deceptively strong, the inherent synergy and omnipresent threat of Dwellers coming from the L4 is very strong here, and the Witches are just brutal. As shown in the report above, even a very small amount of Witches can really cause problems (when they reached my IG they were 4 left. I lost nearly a dozen before I got to strike back). I`ll be following this blog with great interest to see how Dark Reaper can develop the list and master its intricacies

The point of the battle report was to show that two deathstars can be chaffed up, so one is even easier to chaff up. Effectiveness of the 4 Reapers depends entirely on terrain and opposition list so can't be relied upon to clear the way all the time, and the rest of the list lacks punch.

As for the Witchstar`s weaknesses it depends entirely upon the matchup. You mention Empire and WoC. Against the latter you can simply hang back and force him to come to you. He`ll have a super-hard time dealing with Warlocks and Shades, even Dark Riders can`t be handled effectively here. Empire is a little trickier, the saving grace here is that they normally lack chaff. I don`t see neither impact hits nor thunderstomps as a problem for the witches as nothing with either of them want to engage it: chariots get blown away quickly and monsters hate poison. 1+ AS actually isn`t a problem either as a S7 AP lord alone can dish out 3W/turn (assuming non-ward). Then there`s the 50 attacks with poison, re-rolling to hit, re-rolling to wound. The math starts adding up my man and at the end of the day you simply don`t want to be doing this. Unkillable Roadblocks - usually these have high T, which is negated by poison, e.g. Iron Daemon, Sphinxes etc. The only roadblock I can think of which could be a problem is the T10 W5 Dwarf Lord since his frontage is so small. He is rarely taken and he is vulnerable to combat resolution (3 ranks, 2 banners etc). Did you have anyone else in mind?

WoC has the mobility to avoid the Witchstar, smash up all the little light units surrounding it, then deal (or not) with the Witchstar later in the game.

In regards to roadblocks there is the 1+, 3++ (re-rolling) character. As the list has been written there is no ward or weapon on the Lord, so he can't do much to such a character. As the Witches are frenzied, you don't even have to waste such a character, you just redirect them someplace obscure and clear up the rest of the army.

Quote:

There is no need to send the Witches anywhere: they`ll never reach meaningful combat regardless.

This is my point. You just avoid the witches and then you are faced with:

I get your point 100%, but as I said it`s irrelevant as the WitchElves aren`t going anywhere. There are very few armies in Warhammer that can compete with the ranged presence in this list. Those who can (mainly gunlines) can`t chaff as effectively as DE MSU.

As for WoC, I don`t know what kind of list you are talking about to be honest, but I don`t know any WoC list who can move as they please given this list. Double Doombolt, double soulblight and 4 Reapers hurt a LOT. If you could provide an example list it would be a lot easier to assess the matchup.

Roadblocks - you can tell from the total points that the Lord has S7 weapon. It`s just Dark Reaper`s copy-paste skills that are lacking Also, 1+, 3++ Chaos things don`t get re-rolls under ETC and are super-vulnerable to the static combat resolution of the star.

If you disagree that the ranged presence in this list is superior to most armies in Warhammer, then we simply don`t have much to discuss. The point of the list is to rely on these support elements to bring home the points. Naturally the Witchelves are super-dangerous, but most opponents can handle them. Few opponents can get big points from them though.

If you disagree that the ranged presence in this list is superior to most armies in Warhammer, then we simply don`t have much to discuss.

I could say that if you disagree that the Witchstar can be easily ignored and the rest of the army swept up then we don't have much to discuss

/discussion with Olannon

@ Dark Reaper

I actually like this list. It fits well into a inverted V formation with a powerful centre, flexible support and a key pivot in the Sorceress.I think you played it beautifully in the above report.It's a good list under the restrictions, but in my opinion not a great list.

I don't like to be a negative poster, and usually encourage novel playstyles, lists and tactics. However you specifically asked for feedback with tournaments in mind and so I'm calling it as I see it -> frenzy makes the Witchstar vulnerable, and the rest of the list is relatively soft.

So, take or leave my feedback, enjoy the tournament and please let us know how you get on (I don't mind being proved wrong )

Thank you very much for the feedback. The reason that I started this blog was partly to get a discussion going anyway, so you being the "negative poster" is actually great.

The lord does indeed have a Giant Blade, I just forgot to put it in.

By no means do I think this list is perfect, but I believe it has a lot of potential, and I want to play around a bit with it to test it out. There are undoubtedly things that can be improved upon and it is interesting to see that Olannon pointed to the Hag, which I am not really sure about myself yet. I think the 80pts from her weapon and rune of khaine might be better spent elsewhere.

I think that it is hard to see how the cauldron unit works without seeing it in action as well. You can go wide for attacks or simply go five wide for ranks if you want to. The cauldron, the lord and the bsb/champion wil then take up the entire front rank, which will be devastatin to a lot of units. The attacks from the Lord are some of the highest quality attacks in all of warhammer ws7 s7 AP, re-roll to hit and re-roll to wound. On the other hand, as you saw in the BR, the deathstar is also great simply as point preservation, while the rest of the list does the heavy lifting.

I am not going to be playing in a tournament with this list for a little while yet I think, but I will try to get some more games in and document them here.

Quite a lively discussion, great . I 'll try not to beat any dead horses (Great that you actually have an icon for it here) as much has already been discussed in detail. Since I'm the Wood Elf player in question I'll take a look at that side of things.

The witch star is very strong, but the thing is, it doesn't have to advance. As long as Dark Reaper judges the matchup right, he can hide the witchstar behind terrain on his side of the table and wait the enemy out. That leaves some very dangerous magic and shooting that will take points from the enemy, and be hard to take points from in return.

What about the advance? The shooting magic available for DE can kill redirectors very well, as the above report shows. Dual doombolt has effective 36" range and you will on average have to spend a scroll to stop both in the same magic phase. The witchstar isn't automatically redirected, it will take effort. And that effort can be made costly by reapers, warlocks etc.

Olannon's battle report with the witchstar vs Chaos dwarfs I find interesting, but inconclusive. They finished in turn four. Hopefully there's a rematch at a later date. In my mind it does show of the weakness of the list if it's forced to advance into shooting while being redirected. How many of these actual matchups there are would be interestig to see.

What I'd like to see from Dark Reaper- A simple calculation what happens when the witchstar is hit by either Demigryphs of skullchrushers, five strong. You may if you wish assume the worstcase scenario that they overran and thus are unable to reform before the charge. - A calculation that shows why you should keep Ring of Hotek. -An actual battle vs the Imperial armoured brigade. I'm not sure what the worst matchup is for this list, but Empire with tank, demis, hellblasters and so on should figure up there-Some more thoughts on worst case matchups

With perfect hindsight it's clear I made a big blunder vanguarding up the left flank. 2x5 scouts would always end up deploying somewhere to block my advance on his RBTs. With that in mind I should have concluded that the only way to advance was with overwhelming force, or not at all. To this end a deployment of all wild riders to my right flank would probably been better. Failing that, a vanguard towards the centre or back towards the house in my deployment zone.

The reason I chose to go agressive was experience in how deadly RBT are to wood elves. Even with 50 glade guard, 4 RBTs win that duel, since the RBTs can stay out of range. And the DE have means to make sure they stay at range. In addition comes dual soulblight and doombolt, both deadly to a T3 unarmoured army. The experince in this battle I think proves me right. Two thirds of my army was destroyed at range. In total I lost two models in close combat. A few fled, but even most were then shot down.

The building and free forest in the middle was a solid defensive position, but too small to hide an entire army behind. Believe me, I tried.

As it were I lost 1-19. A hardfought draw might be possible. What I could have done was staying more defensive and focused shooting on the other units in his army. At the least this would have forced the Dark Elves back and netted me some straight points. I also had a bad judgement in dispelling. I used one to few of available dice to dispel Flesh to Stone at a crucial point. Without that I'm pretty sure his witch elfs would have been lost and his characters more vulnerable to Final transmutation. Which was eaten by Ring of Hotek. Drat. Anyhow. Concentrating shooting on the witchstar instead of supporting units was a calculated gamble that failed to pay fully off.

Another case was my right flank. I had a stone wall for hard cover, wild riders, glade riders and a dryad unit, vs a bolt thrower in a house and one warlock units. Should be easy right? Nope. Warlocks don't have to be in combat to be effective. In the end I ate his RBT, while his warlocks contributed to the battle by Doombolt all the time. For the wood elves, the whole flank was dancing to very little effect.

About the army I played. Death and metal magic is one of the worst ones to use Dark Reapers particular setup. Were I to tool, I would have taken shadow and heavens. I was however looking at how an all-comer army played in a less than ideal matchup. Wild riders are actually quite decent, but they don't shoot. Switching to a 100% avoidance and shooting army would probably work better. My one gripe with that army is how complete and utter boring it is to play. Simply personal preference. I prefer to learn to play better with the army I have. This report and subsequent discussion have shown that I still have plenty to learn

Lest I forget, I'll give Dark Reaper his due. He played a tight game and didn't give up points easily, while putting pressure on all the way. His one mistake might be not charging down my rightmost dryads with warlocks early, something he declined due to risk. That probably cost him the 20-nil.

With perfect hindsight it's clear I made a big blunder vanguarding up the left flank. 2x5 scouts would always end up deploying somewhere to block my advance on his RBTs.

The Shades really provide a lot of utility for their 80pts price tag. The thing is, I could have placed them on the other flank to win that instead if you decided to be more passive on your left flank.

rusty_ wrote:

As it were I lost 1-19.

This is correct. You wrote 20-0 on another forum, so I just copied that.

rusty_ wrote:

Another case was my right flank. I had a stone wall for hard cover, wild riders, glade riders and a dryad unit, vs a bolt thrower in a house and one warlock units. Should be easy right? Nope. Warlocks don't have to be in combat to be effective. In the end I ate his RBT, while his warlocks contributed to the battle by Doombolt all the time. For the wood elves, the whole flank was dancing to very little effect.

I did not really devote a lot of time to my left flank at all in the BR. Warlocks are truly an amazing unit. They provide a sizeable ranged threat and are also quite good in combat. The poison, s4, 2 attacks and murderous prowess combined with their 4++ pretty much beat any flankers in a fight.

rusty_ wrote:

Lest I forget, I'll give Dark Reaper his due. He played a tight game and didn't give up points easily, while putting pressure on all the way. His one mistake might be not charging down my rightmost dryads with warlocks early, something he declined due to risk. That probably cost him the 20-nil.

Thanks mate, I think you played a better game than the result reflects as well. It is a poor matchup for the WE. It is quite hard to hide from Reapers when hiding in a wood gives me an extra d6 s4 hits from awakening of the woods. I may have been a bit too passive with regards to the dryads, and I often play a bit too safe in those kinds of situations.

Is there any possibility of putting either your BSB or your Lord (or both) on a Peg? Or does the comp nerf such options?

I could put both of them on pegs if I wanted to, but I am not sure that it would be such a good idea. It gives me a lot of options regarding movement, but it makes the witches a lot weaker, and I mean a lot! I would absolutely like to have some kind of ward save on the Lord, even though he already gets a 6++ from the Cauldron, but I believe that the Crown of Command is too important. The S7 AP is also incredibly strong, and there are actually quite few things in the whole game that can go toe-to-toe with him. Keep in mind that no units can be worth more than 450 points either and there are actually not a lot of configurations that will beat this unit.

I really like my BSB as well. I will try to write a spotlight on him pretty soon.

Again, thanks for the feedback. A healthy discussion is important if I am to improve the list further.

My BSB model is the old 6th edition on foot. It has been lying around for a while, and I never really found a great opporunity to use it. With this list, I can finally field a BSB on foot, and get to use the model (YAY! ), without feeling like I am handicapping myself.

IMO, the reason that the BSB on foot is now viable is that the SDC now gives a 5+ scaly skin save. This is huge, as he can easily get a 2+ armour save with just mundane equipment or a 1+ with the Enchanted Shield or Dragonhelm. As the standard 2+ save does not come from his magic items allowance, he is free to take utility or damage items or even a magic banner if he wants to.

Currently, my BSB is running around carrying the Ring of Hotek. It gives him mr(3) and makes the opponent miscast on double 1s as well as double 6s within 6" of the bearer. This means that the mr(1) from the Cauldron is replaced and the characters in the unit gets a 3++ against magic, instead of a 5++ and the Witch Elves (including the Hag) get a 2++ instead of a 4++.

The 3++ against death snipes is huge for point preservation as the Lord or the BSB can easily be targeted by Caress of Laniph from 24" away, and with only a 5++, things start to get a little to dicey for my comfort. On average, it does a wound to either of them, but can do much more with an above average roll. With 3++, the damage potential is cut in half.

The 2++ for the unit is a bit more situational, but it acts as a poor man's Banner of the World Dragon. Spells that will usually decimate the Witch Elf unit, such as Fiery Convocation or Plague, suddenly have their effectiveness reduced by 2/3. A successful casting of Fiery Convocation will only see about four Witch Elves die with the 2++.

Another point to note is that the Ring is also somewhat effective against "no saves of any kind spells", such as Dwellers or Final Transmutation as these spells have high casting values and you need a lot of dice to reliably cast them. Remember that the Ring also protects you against other kinds of spells, making it even more important to actually cast these spells, as they are the only ones you are afraid of! The Ring makes the opponent miscast on a double 1 as well as double 6, something that should make the total chance of a miscast up to about 40% if rolling 5 dice (the max under ETC). Note that for a spell like Fiery Convocation, the increased miscast threat is there as well as the increased ward save.

So that is my rationale for running the BSB with Ring of Hotek

Regarding his equipment: I am not sure if my current configuration is the best and I am considering finding the points to give him a Great Weapon. This will reduce his armour save to a 3+ in close combat, but will give me some extra high S attacks. S6 armour piercing is pretty good.

Pictures are a little far away for much detailed analysis of the paint job, but I would urge you to add something to the banner. A rune of some sort maybe. Plenty of transfers out there or some freehand work if you are confident enough.It will give the model a little lift.

Pictures are a little far away for much detailed analysis of the paint job, but I would urge you to add something to the banner. A rune of some sort maybe. Plenty of transfers out there or some freehand work if you are confident enough.It will give the model a little lift.

I am not the greatest painter, so you aren't missing much. Good point on the banner though. I was thinking about doing something with it and transfers sounds like a great idea.

Ok, let us take a look at the basics of this list: the Lord is pretty much locked. S7 and S6 simply cannot be compared. Take it from a player who has dozens of games with Giant Blade cavprinces and Star Dragon-lists. The Hag and Cauldron are locked, as are the Witch Elves and the chaff. Assuming minimal support (2x5 Shades, 2x5 WL, 4 RBTs in this case) and 3++ vs magic/ranged on the L4, we get the following:

That leaves us with a little over 200 points to play with. This is the barebones essentials of this army. The ETC restrictions don`t really hit us, so let`s take a look at our options:- make the Hag a BSB and spend the rest on even more support. This allows WL to go to 7 big each (and we all know how strong they already are) and more Shades to be put on the table. Note that while the Hag may be sniped easily by Cannons, this doesn`t net bonus points for BSB. There`s also the option of course to simply put the L4 in front, acting as a meatshield. It`s probably not the best of ideas despite the 4++, but it`s an option that can be considered against single-cannon armies where Dwellers doesn`t do a whole lot. - include a master which drastically improves the endurance of the block and its characters (i.e. Hotek)- include an Assassin with the Black Dragon Egg, AHW and Killing Blow. This makes it impossible to engage the block with even MC, and a lot of roadblocks (T10 W5 Dwarf Lord for example) suddenly aren`t road blocks any longer

These are the 3 options I consider viable for this list. Of course you can also include more mages, but I don`t see the value in this: maybe a L1 Death could be worth it (an arcane slot is always nice and LD10 SL is very powerful). Perhaps 2 (!!) could even be worth going for, which makes this list play deceptively strong at range: the SL complementing the rest of the magic very well in a number of poor matchups (doubles up as a war machine snipe!).

@ Olannon. Some interesting musings, which I agree with most of the points. Although I would say if you are going to use 3 sorceresses, going the way of a light coven is not a bad option. Death snipers are a nice option however.Not convinced that 4 RBTs are needed, so you could free up another 140 points to play with by only using two, to get another small unit in or give the DRs the shields, rxbs and musicians they do so well with and still have 80 points left.

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